Archive for 2010

Cataracts
Neuropathy
Leg weakness
Diabetes
Cold weather and heart attacks
Dehydration
Autophagy

Cataracts
ADD
Blood sugar testing
Vitamin D
Constipation
Peanut allergy
Eye vitamins

Recently a government agency known as The Institute of Medicine weighed in on the topic of vitamin D. After convening a 14 member panel of researchers to analyze over 1,000 published studies on vitamin D, the IOM made the following recommendations:

• Infants should get no more than 400 IU of vitamin D daily
• Adults should limit intake to 600 IU of vitamin D per day
• Pregnant women should get 600 IU of vitamin D per day

What’s The Harm?

The New York Times, The Wallstreet Journal and other newspapers love controversy. They published headlines such as, “Can Too Much Vitamin D Be Hazardous to Your Health?” These articles suggested that more than the 600 IU of D may pose hazards even though the IOM themselves suggested that the safe upper limit of D is 4,000 IU (up from their previous 2,000 IU recommendation).

Many people confused the recommendation to take 600 IU as an indication that more was toxic. This is an inaccurate interpretation of the IOM recommendations. Remember, the 600 IU adult dose that was suggested is a recommended daily allowance, not a suggestion that higher doses may be toxic. In the IOM’s report, they suggest that a dose over 10,000 IU per day is toxic, even though they failed to provide proof of such toxicity.

What Harm?

According to the IOM, doses over 10,000 IU could cause damage to kidneys and other tissues, once again they came to this conclusion without providing reproducible proof of such side effects. It should be noted that the body will produce up to 10,000 IU of vitamin D from simple sun exposure, is the IOM suggesting that nature messed up?

I should point out that the IOM decided on its position regarding the safety of vitamin D based on the philosophy that because there is little evidence that higher doses of D are safe, we should assume it is toxic. Although I agree that we should exercise caution when taking high doses of anything, including vitamins, I feel that they should be more responsible with how they phrase such caution.

How Do We Know That It Is Safe?

First, let me point out that even the IOM, a notoriously conservative organization, suggests that doses up to 4,000 IU appear to be safe, meaning the research suggests that there is no toxicity at this dose. In other words, if you take up to 4,000 IU per day, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. The debate is whether or not doses above this 4,000 IU range are safe.

Personally, I typically do not recommend taking more than 4,000 IU per day unless we have blood tests that suggest that we need more. If, however, blood tests continue to be suboptimal on doses of D up to 4,000 IU, is the IOM suggesting that we not take more?

What Are We Missing?

Unfortunately, it appears that the IOM is not being forthcoming with all of the recommendations from the individual experts on the panel. In fact, some of the experts on the panel were staunch advocates for the safety and efficacy of higher dose vitamin D. Their reports, however, are being suppressed by the IOM. This means we can not read the recommendations of these experts, we are only provided access to the final paper of the IOM. The Vitamin D Council is in the process of filing, under the Freedom of Information Act, a lawsuit to have those reports made public. It makes you wonder what they are hiding.

What Should You Take Away from this Paper?

The purpose of today’s article was to defend the safety record of vitamin D, not to get into the mountains of research that support the use of vitamin D for the prevention of diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and brain dysfunction.

Based on this paper alone, we can establish the following:

1. Vitamin D is extremely safe up to doses of 4,000 IU per day
2. Vitamin D is probably safe up to doses of 10,000 IU, provided you are monitoring blood tests and keeping the blood levels within the optimal range of 50-80 ng/ml
3. 400 IU per day is likely a sufficient dose for infants
4. 600 IU is way too low for pregnant women and adults, even though the IOM suggests that it is sufficient
5. Blood testing is recommended to assure that you are within the optimal range.
6. The IOM provides no definitive evidence that higher doses of vitamin D are toxic; they are assuming toxicity based on a lack of evidence that doses higher than 4,000 IU per day are safe.

Vitamin D
Pain for dental procedures
Perfect multi
Nutrient 950
Magnets
Frozen shoulder

Weight loss group
Holistic wellness
Dental work
Medication allergies/sensitivities
Cortisol and testosterone
Glucose tolerance testing
Blood testing vs. salivary testing
Cataracts

Leg cramps
Addison’s disease
Fatty liver

IBS
I26
Melatonin
Food allergy relief book
Psoriasis
Derma whey
Meriva
Olive oil vs. grapeseed oil
Extra virgin coconut oil
Iodine – sski
Foot numbness

In conventional medicine, everything is compartmentalized. For example, when you walk into a cardiologist’s office, they have a tendency to view you as a heart with legs. They do not see a connection between the health of your heart and the inflammation in your joints or anywhere else in the body.

In holistic medicine, everything is viewed as connected, which means that every symptom has a message from the entire body. To a holistic practitioner, the joint inflammation may also indicate inflammation in the arteries of the heart. This is just one example of the interconnectivity of the body.

So, what message does body odor send? More importantly, how do we fix it naturally?

First, offensive body odor is not something to be ignored or brushed off as nothing more than personal hygiene neglect. One interesting hypothesis in natural medicine is that the skin is a backup detoxification organ, which is called into action when the liver and kidneys are overwhelmed. Another hypothesis may explain why offensive body odor is such a hush-hush topic in society and why you simply can’t ignore it…

People who have offensive body odor often suffer with chronic illness. It is possible that body odor is an evolutionary defense against spreading disease. Let me explain…

When an individual in the tribe is sick or riddled with disease, the evolutionary processes would want to contain the damage in both a long-term and short-term way…

For the short term, by producing body odor, the rest of the tribe will know that you are sick, which would result in a temporary social quarantine. In other words, people will avoid you. When you are no longer sick, the body odor will dissipate and people will want to be near you again.

For the long term, if you are chronically sick and thus have sustained body odor, nature will prevent you from mating and spreading your sickly genetics. In other words, the opposite sex will avoid you and you could be ousted from the tribe.

My point is, body odor is far more serious than a social roadblock. It speaks to the health of the body in a general sense.

So, what can we do about body odor?

2.      Replace good bacteria. When certain foodstuff is not fully digested, specific organisms will ferment the material into toxic substances, which can be absorbed into the blood and emitted through the skin. Good bacteria, such as those found in iFlora by Sedona Labs, will help to balance the ecology of the gut.

3.      Try cranberry concentrate. One case report, published in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, found that one glass of cranberry juice per day resulted in the elimination of body odor in one individual. Make sure you choose a cranberry concentrate, such as the Cranberry Concentrate by Genesis Today, rather than a high-sugar cranberry cocktail. (Call 888-7944325 for more information on this product).

4.      Try zinc. In one study, zinc was shown to help control body odor. Try Opti-Zinc 20 mg once per day.

5.      Drink water. Water hydrates the skin and prevents pores from clogging with bacteria.

Whenever you have a symptom, such as offensive body odor, always assume that there is a particular reason for the symptom and try to get to that underlying cause. Body odor is so easily dismissed as a superficial problem. Hopefully, I have convinced you that it likely has far deeper roots within your overall health.

Pancreatitis
Prostate enlargement
Flu shot
Vitamin D
Blood pressure
Hypothyroidism
Herpes
Heavy metals in brain
Chlorella
Potassium